As far as I understand, hu:User:Tamasflex is from the Hungarian-speaking part of Rumania. Every now and then he is editing in foreign Wikipedias of which he does not at all understand the language. His edits primarily consist of inserting his own, not very explicative, images on optical topics, and even replacing(!) existing images by his own ones. On top of that, he also inserts accompanying text, like captions, paragraph titles etc., leaving these in (often poor!) English. He does not bother to ask someone to translate them (extreme example here; see (English!) section headers "Micoscope gallery" and "Mechanical part of microscopes"), so these untranslated texts sometimes remain unnoticed for several months. On some occasions, he applied what seems to be a machine translation, not being aware that such translations are notoriously poor. (I found an instant where eyepiece was "translated" portion of an eye, a literal but totally wrong machine translation of eyepiece.)

Also, several times he has put links to his images into the caption texts of existing images (like here and here), which of course is not wanted. In spite of explicit warning not to do this, he did it again here] recently.

His images are mostly about optics. Their style is pretty old-fashioned, looking like small 19th-century paintings rather than illustrations explaining things, and are not in a style expected for a 21st-century encyclopedia. Also, most images do not "explain" anything; they just "look nice" but are mostly useless in the context. Some images even show his user name "Tamasflex" in a kind of calligraphic style, like a trade mark (see e.g. here, here and here), thus suggesting commercial intentions, which is not allowed in Wikipedia.

Also, authors may prefer a certain style of images. This is especially true for diagrams, which are made to illustrate things explained in the text. Obviously, when replacing existing images, there is a great risk that references to the image in the text may no longer be correct. References do not always use letters or numbers, they may also refer to attributes like colors, or to parts of or positions in the image ("top", "bottom", etc.) or shapes ("curved", etc.), or whatever. Someone who does not know the language can impossibly detect such misreferences that may occur when an image is replaced. Tamasflex, however, even edits the Hebrew, Arab, Chinese and Japanese Wikipedias, not to mention many others!

Strange enough, on his French and Italian discussion pages he did ask for help translating the texts in one of his images. However, it is far from clever to ask such a question in one’s own(!) discussion page, as the only reaction given on the French page also tries to explain to him. This also suggests that he is not a very good "communicator", as is also suggested by the many links to his Hungarian user page I found (see paragraph Attempts to find out about his background below). Also, the reaction on his French discussion page points at the not-so-well-chosen file format he is using. So he does not seem to be very well-informed in IT matters either. This seems to be in line with the above-mentioned fact that he sometimes places links to his images into the captions of other images.

Several times he has been warned and asked to stop doing these edits. I suggested him to offer his drawings on discussion pages (where he may of course write in English) and gave him this link as an example, but he should leave the actual choosing and placing of images to local editors who both know the language and are familiar with the subject. Also, on the English and German Wikipadias he has been warned. In all cases, he is simply ignorig any warnings and just goes on dropping his stuff everywhere.

As for myself, I am mainly working in the Dutch Wikipedia, where Tamasflex has done these edits. After quite a bit of research I found what seem to be his Hungarian and Commons user pages; later I found that he also has a Rumanian discussion page. I can read neither Hungarian nor Rumanian, but in his Hungarian user page as well as in the descriptions of his images in Commons I found his Hungarian-looking personal name (Szőcs Tamás), so I presume Hungarian is his native language. In his user pages in Commons and in several other Wikipedia versions (like French, Spanish, Italian, Norwegian, Russian, Hebrew), the only content is a link to his Hungarian user page. If he presumes that the entire world is able to read Hungarian, his sense of reality does not seem te be very well developed. On the other hand, in some other Wikipedias (like Dutch, Swedish, Danish) he did not make such a page so far. As far as I can see, he did not make an Arab user page either, but on what seems to be his Arab discussion page, someone wrote a reaction there which I cannot read, but which contains links to Wikimedia instruction pages about copyrights and licensing. A Dutch Wikipedian who can read some Arabic assured me that these texts are just welcome texts, instructions, etc. and no warnings or so.

Comparing the lists of "edits by this user" in several other Wikipedias (I checked English, German, French, Spanish and a few others), as well as the list of file usage of some of his files on Commons, suggests that his primary occupation is pushing his images everywhere, simply ignoring that he is causing lots of irritation and extra work for other people. Maybe a clumsy kind of secretly "marketing" his own graphical products? If so, this might be a commercial activity prohibited in Wikipedia.

My conclusion is that he either doesn't understand what he is actually doing, or is just pushing his own "products". Both are unwanted.

I found a Dutch Wikipedian who understands Hungarian and who was so kind as to provide a Dutch summary of Tamasflex's Hungarian user page (and to advise me to put this request here). Though Tamasflex claims to be an electronics engineer, he says he is working on "vacuum tube amplifiers", which sounds pretty old-fashioned. Also, he claims to be the author of an unpublished book on optics. If this book's quality is similar to the drawings he is exposing here, I am not surprised that his book has not been published. He seems to be a hobbyist rather than a professional. Professionals would prefer images that "explain" something, not just nice-looking artistical drawings in an old-fashioned style.

As I cannot read Hungarian or Rumanian, I will not be able to understand reactions in the Hungarian Wikipedia. So I would be very pleased if you would be so kind as to inform me on this special discussion page about the situation, reactions, etc. If you want to notify me of a reaction in the Hungarian Wikipedia, or if you prefer to write confidentially, you may send me an e-mail. (In case of an e-mail, don't forget to include a link to a similar e-mail form where I can answer if necessary.) In either case, feel free to write in English or in German (I have a good command of both).

Any help in this annoying situation will be appreciated; thanks in advance.

This is really a long essay, but we are responsible only for Hungarian Wikipedia and we have no right to control anyone's edits on other Wikipedias. You should write to the stewards on Meta, they can act and therefore Meta is the correct place for such complaints. Bináriside Kelt: Wikipédia, 2011. április 9., 15:24 (CEST)

Thanks for the hint. It is the first time I am asking for such a global action. I now placed a short request with a link to here on this page. »HHahn(overleg) 9 apr 2011 16:03 (CEST)

Saw your post on meta; he's indeed been pulling his stunts all over the place, including Navajo. The thing is that I found some wikipedias actually welcome such galleries and additions in English (probably because they associate the language with, y'know, "progress" or whatever). When I reverted one of his English-language galleries somewhere (can't remember where it was, sorry), I actually received a vandalism-warning. So a global block seems unlikely. Seb az86556 (overleg) 9 apr 2011 16:47 (CEST) (= en:User:Seb az86556 in English WP)

Hello Seb az86556, I do not believe that the Navajo example you mention (and possibly some similar ones) would be a problem for a global block. After all, vandalism is checks by manu users, not all of them being familiar with all topics. If you explain in layman's terms what is wrong, they may get convinced. Actually, I had a similar experience here in the Dutch WP, were I had to convince someone of the uselessness of most of T's images, as well as the unacceptable scattering his stuff all over the place. And WP-style is that the majority decides, so if enough WP's want hin to be globally blocked, this should be possible.

I thought I would add my comments/observations here. If these need to be moved or added to some other forum please let me know. I have been editing (hopefully improving) some telescope and optics articles on English Wikipedia. I noticed Tamasflex putting up illustrations and substituting them en-masse across all of Wikipedia. These illustrations were not much better than the ones they replaced, i.e. Tamasflex was replacing vector images with low resolution PNG images, the images were a little "slick" graphically making it hard to tell what was a lens/mirror, whats a strut, whats a dew cap or barrel part with sometimes incorrect details[1], and some were impossible to read/understand as thumbnails [2]. I did point this out to Tamasflex[3] explaining Wikipedia English consensus guidelines as to what constituted a good or poor image. I got a response from Tamasflex[4] which did not seem to contain an understanding of some of the problems, maybe because of a language barrier, but did get comments per: I was the only person to complain and "What is your problem?".

I also note the further problem of self-promotion via the signed images contrary to English guidelines [5] and the way they seem to be "spammed" en-masse across all of Wikipedia.

I would note on the positive side Tamasflex does not seem to be a tendentiou editor in not reinserting images once they have been moved to gallery or removed, so the remedy for this situation may simply be for individual editors in each language to clean up Tamasflex edits if needed. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (overleg) 15 apr 2011 13:23 (CEST)

@Fountains of Bryn Mawr: It's fine that you write your comments here. The purpose of this page is to "collect" discussions on T., in order to simplify block requests in as many WP's as needed.

Your conclusion is understandable. Consider, however, that he is not limiting hiself to just one or two articles. In that case, it would be simply a matter of keeping those few articles on your watchlist. Now we have to have on our watchlist about all articles that he ever may work on. That is practically impossible.

He said to you that "you were the only one complaining". That is what he says to each and every complainer! In his poor (machine-translated!) English, he even tries to suggest that we should not bother when he puts a link into an image caption. In several Wikipedias he has been warned not to do that, but still he keeps doing it.

You are right that he does not revert our reversions of his edits (or rather, I cannot remenber real examples of such re-reversions, but I am not absolutely sure). But if his aim is to contribute to the quality of the projects, he should limit himself to offering images (which he can do on talk pages, in English), and leave it to the local editors, who know the language, are familiar with the topic and can read the article. Only they can decide whether or nit a certain picture is fit for that place in article. The way he actually works, shows that he is not (primarily) interested in improving Wikipedia, but primarily in pushing his own stuff.

He does not understand, or does not want to understand any arguments. He keeps doing things his own way, without bothering about any comments. As I see it, the only way to stop him is blocking him for at least half a year or so (as a warning), and if after that time hge goes on, a block for an unlimited time. (A first block for three months seem suseless, as he does not edit in individual WPs frequently. He seems to be too busy messing around on all other WPs. And, of course, making new drawings. He seems to be working in a limited number of topics at a time.)

Dear HHahn Thanks for the ong essay about me! I do not think you deserve to get tired for a few pictures taken of me. Your problem started when I changed a few pictures taken of you. Since then not stand up to me. Perhaps some pictures taken of me are old fashioned. Your drawings are of poor quality (filled with errors) and should be changed. I wrote to you, if you do not like my pictures instead the old version. The latest edition of my on at the periscope was not good? Why so disturbed connection to another drawing? What is your problem? It was easier to correct in your language English inscription than to get angry for nothing. Find a user Nederland who knows in Hungarian to respond to you properly. Even we can talk on Skype if who translates. --Tamasflex (overleg) 9 apr 2011 20:24 (CEST)

Mr. Tamasflex,

First of all, considering your poor English, I would suggest that you ask a Hungarian- or Rumanian-speaking person with a better knowledge of English to help you translate this.

I have extensively explained to you that it is unacceptable to put links to an image into the caption texts of other images. Just for sure, I am not the only one who deleted such links you made!

You are saynig that "my" images contain errors. If so, then the correct procedure would be to let me onow in a decent way, e.g. on my discussion page. Then you might have understood that the images are not showing what you expect them to do, because they are related to the surrounding text of the article they are used in.

If you do understand what I mean with with the previous item 2, you should also understand that you should never ever replace an existing image in an existing article that you cannot read well. The text may refer to certain parts of the image, even if they are not marked with letters of figures.

Most of your images are not "informative", as they do not explain anything. Showing the outside of, say, a Kepler telescope does in no way explain anything about is inner construction are the way it works.

The style of you images may look nice for a secondary-schoolbook or so, but not for a serious encyclopedia.

You suggest that "my" images are full of errors. You do not even try to tell what image(s) you are referring to. In actual fact, most of the images you removed, where nou produced by myself. I agree that not all existing images are very good. But from those imanges I did make myself you might conclude that I do know what optics is (I am a universitey-level physicist).

I happen to be the person who took the trouble to track you down and to try and have you being warned to stop this mess. But that does by no means imply that I were the only one who is getting irritated by the mess you are making. There are many more people who are angry with you.

Once again, (a) stop replacing existing images in any articles in languages you so not perfectly(!) understand. And (b) stop putting links to whatever images into captions of images!

Don't ask questions like "What is your problem". I have clearly explained what our' problem (plural, i.e. of all serious authors working on optics-related articles in all Wikipedia editions!). If you do not understand this, I am sorry to say that you are showing yourself that you are not the right person to add such images.

Your images are available at Wikimedia Commons. When authors look for images, they will find them, It is then up to them to choose those images they consider fit for the article. The authors of an article, knowing both the topic and the language, are the only ones who are able judge whether ot not any particular image is fit for the article.

Additional remark: When I tried to save the above reaction, I got an edit conflict: someone else also reacted. See Seb az86556's reaction above. This perfectly illustrates that I am not the only one who is totally fed up with your way of "working"! »HHahn(overleg) 9 apr 2011 21:23 (CEST)

I moved your reaction to here. React only under the text you are referring to! That is the only way to keep things readable and tracable.

I don't know what you are talking about. I did not excuse myself! I guess uou'd better ask someone to help you translating English to Hungarian.

I am not going to do whatever together with a guy who only shows one thing, viz. that he is not able to effectively communicate. It would be a waste of time. I am writing articles for Wikipedia and do not see any need to calculate whatever for or with you.

I don't know what you are talking about with your first sentence above, which contains a couple of Dutch words but does not mean anything decent.

Addition: We are not talking about calculating whatever, but about writing an encyclopedia! »HHahn(overleg) 9 apr 2011 21:53 (CEST)

Dear HHahn

Thanks for the conversation. Do not bother with my photos on your page. My side conversation is closed. I see that you do not want to go into details of optical calculations for me you're not a physicist as saying.

You wrote:We havenot Talking about calculating whatever, But encyclopedia about writing year! I thought we were doing a demonstration of optical calculations to your user page or mine.

You made me a amateur in optics i wanted to see what level you are. Therefore I proposed an elementary calculation. You're right Wikipedia is a serious site. And I'm trying to help something. I see you're already at the limit with nerves. You can not deny in what language edit! If I stick the first time I'll write to you because I want to change something. Best Regard and good sleep.--Tamasflex (overleg) 9 apr 2011 23:08 (CEST)

Tamasflex, you do not understand what the problem is. The main problem is writing in (poor) English where it does not belong, and changing things in languages you obviously do not understand. You are either very brave or very arrogant. I, at least, would not dare try to write in Hungarian. Seb az86556 (overleg) 9 apr 2011 23:15 (CEST)

Excuse me, I do not correct the text. Inscription drawings is in English which can be corrected. See: [6]--Tamasflex (overleg) 10 apr 2011 09:20 (CEST)

You are obviously dense or willfully ignorant; "when in Rome..." do you know that saying? Do not write in English, unless you are at English language-projects. Seb az86556 (overleg) 10 apr 2011 14:38 (CEST)

Everything HHahn said about the dutch Wikipedia I can confirm for the german Wikipedia. I am author at the german Wikipedia. I think, that you don't even realize, what you do, because you never read the reactions. You think your drawings have no errors? How do you know if you can't read the comments that contain the descriptions of the errors in your drawings? See here [7], your drawing was removed and there is a discription of several errors. But you never read it, do you? Your drawings are not as good as you think. Today, I kicked out your drawings of the periscope in the german wikipedia, because I reallized some fundamental errors, see [8]. I descibed the error in the comment of the change. Do you know what's wrong? No? That is the main problem. You don't know it, because you can't read the german language. You think you are free of errors, because you are a physicist from university? I don't know what you learn at university in your country. We learned at university, that it is necessary to have a polite and gentleman-like behaviour in a scientific community. I consider the Wikipedia as a scientific community.

I made this drawing File:Periscope_simple.svg a few years ago, when I was teaching at university. I never put this drawing at any wikipedia side other than the german one. However, some years later this drawing was widespread over about 20 wikipedia projects in other languages, without my influence. This was because people looked at wikimedia commons and found the image appropriate. The image is an svg vector drawing. It has very high quality if you print it in high resolution. And everybody can edit it using the open source software Inkscape to add or replace elements. I made it public domain, so nobody has to care about authors or licens issus. This is the "natural" way of a drawing to become widespread. Now you replaced it in all wikipedias all over the world by your png-drawing, what is more or less the same and has the disadvantages of a non-vector image. Don't you think your behaviour is a little bit bigheaded and ridiculous? Why didn't you just edit my drawing, if you find it not good enough? And why don't you produce vector drawings? Everybody can correct your errors or adjust it for the needs of the local Wikipedia sides. Some of your work would quite be usefull. And by the way, Inkscape is a really great open source program.

Tamasflex, please change your behaviour, if you want us to appreciate you contributions.

P.S.: and please never use this grid-pattern fillings. This looks really ugly, like old 16-color-EGA graphics.

To ChriSchi's comment above I would add the following. It is never ever useful if someone places an image into an article in a language he cannot very well read! Everybody is free to upload images to Commons, but selecting appropriate images for use in article must always be left to users who both know the article's language and understand the article's topic. If you do not undetand the language, you may suggest one or more images on the article's talk page (as I did here). »HHahn(overleg) 10 apr 2011 22:48 (CEST)

To ChriSchi: Thanks to your observation for Handheld Periscope. We redesigned. I was not careful. Regarding the Zeiss Periscope you were not careful.

You change the my photos with yours. Page now looks very weak. You have to get the picture format is not an excuse to change. Wikipedia permitted file types: png, gif, jpg, jpeg, XCF, mid, ogg, ogv, svg, DjVu, tiff, tif, OGA.

3 of 5 of your drawings of the periscope contain errors, the others give no new information to the article. Your modifications violate the rules of the wikipedia and you do not take part in any discussions, nor do you react to any comments on your modifications. Therefore I will appeal for a blocking of your account in the german Wikipedia. --ChriSchi77.5.121.155 14 apr 2011 20:51 (CEST)

Tamasflex, the claim for the blocking of your account in the german wikipedia has started. You can defence yourself here. You can answer in english. Your account will be blocked for 3 month. --ChriSchi

Dear friends, I am among the German WP-authors who have, on occatsion, re-verted the insertion of or replacement of other pictures by the pics by Tamasflex. I think we should all depart from the following analysis.

1) Tamasflex put in quite some effort in designing and providing graphs on optical issues which do have some merit.

2) At least some - maybe many - of the edits by Tamasflex were not welcomed in other WPs by relevant authors of the articles. Among the issues is the replacment of vector graphs by non-vector graphs, a non-appropriate "signing" of the graphs. Also, communication has been difficut at times.

Maybe we should all step back a moment and than see where mutual benefits may be found. Tamasflex has declared on this disussion page that he is very knowledgable on "the old way" of disigning and calculating optics. Here is my suggestion:

I think it would be a highly welcomed contribution to collaborate with Tamasflex to get the kind of graphs that are really needed. For example, the Tamasflex graphs of camera lenses that I have seen so far are in a kind of black and white shading of the glass. In cemented compound lenses, this makes it at times more difficult see the single elements compared to graphs where the lenses are shown in different bluish colors. I think everyone would welcome optical graphs in which the central optical properties of the used glases were encoded by the color used. For that, one could use a color coding of the Abbe diagram, for example. If, on top, these graphs were made by a vector graphics program, Tamasflex had a highly respected job.

It does not have to be this example. But along these lines, we may be able to find a solution that makes everyone happier.

BEst regards, Trinitrix

Dear Trinitrix,

Although I understand your point, I do not fully agree.

First of all, my main objection is the fact that he himself EDITS in articles whose language he does not understand. (He even does so in exotic languages like Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese and whatever!) This is completely unacceptable, as he is not able (nor cares) to find out whether the article's text refers to specific image compontents (like colours, or sections of the image like upper, lower, etc.) and as a consequence the image cannot be replaced without damaging the article s a whole.

Time and again he has been warned for exactly this, but he keeps ignoring this. This means that he is unfit(!) to work on other people's articles.

I did suggest to him to put his drawings on Commons and only inform us about them, e.g. by announcing possibly appopriate images on an article's talk page. I even gave him an example (see here) where I myself did exactly this. However, he completely ignores such suggestions and keeps doing his "work" his own -- destructive! -- way.

Due to his totally insufficient knowledge of English (and, as far as I know, German), decent and sufficient communication with him is hardly possible, if not impossible. Such communication, however, is indispensable if we want to write and sustain good articles.

I found other websites mainly forums) where he has been active. However, he hardly writes there and does not appear to be very "communicative". (I don't remember the websites, but search with Google for "Tamasflex" with setting "all domains except wikipedia.org".)

I fear that if we allow him to go on the way you suggest, we will have to put huge amounts of efforts in the whole process.

He shows to be compeltely uninterested in other people's ideas and preferences. He does not seem to be interested at all in helping make a good encyclopedia. He only seems to want to "push" his own "products", preferably whit a clearly visible logo on it.

As far as I could find out, he did not write any article, neither in Hungarian, nor in Rumanian. So there is no indication whatsoerver that he knows what a good article should look like.

My conclusion therefore remains: keep him out of Wikipedia as completely as possible!